Some aircraft have a gimbaled optical sensor system. The optical sensor system may be used to detect target objects that are located great distances from the aircraft. For example, the optical sensor systems detect target objects that are below the aircraft while the aircraft is in flight.
The optical sensor systems often include an optical sensor and a telescope optical assembly to magnify the light received by the optical sensor to allow the optical sensor to capture images of the target object at great distances. However, during flight of the aircraft the telescope optical assembly and the optical sensor are subjected to random vibration causing optical elements to move relative to one another, resulting in image jitter, which can reduce image quality of full motion video or still images.
Typically, very stiff materials (such as beryllium or silicon carbide) are utilized to build the telescope optical assemblies to increase image quality by limiting optics and telescope deformation which assists in mitigating the jitter. These materials tend to be expensive, which adds to the overall cost of the optical sensor system. Additionally under large enough vibration input levels material stiffness alone will not provide the required optical system stability and image quality will be impacted regardless of cost and complexity in telescope design.